Roasting Pans

The pans are made of metal or Pyrex. The metal can be made of stainless steel, cast-iron, enamelled or non-stick. Cast-iron ones, which can be plain or enamelled, can be very heavy, even before you start loading food into them. Blue-speckled enamel ones with lids are a North American classic (though the lids leave Brits scratching their heads.)

Dark-surface Roasting Pans cook food faster, and brown it better, than do shiny ones. The problem with dark-coloured roasting pans, though, is that it can be difficult to tell when the juices are nicely carmelizing, and when they are just plain burning.

Some Roasting Pans come with racks. There are two kinds of racks. The more traditional rack is a V-shaped one that you lay into the bottom of the pan, which you then lay a fowl or joint of meat on top of. A newer kind of rack is a vertical, “beer-can style” of rack, that fits into the cavity of a bird, holding it upright. Some racks will fold flat for storage.

Some people feel that racks get your roasting process closer to true roasting, by allowing air underneath the meat, so that the underside doesn’t just steam or bake, and by allowing the drippings to actually drip off the meat. Others feel that the rack allows the roasting pan to heat up too much, because the mass of the food isn’t touching it directly to absorb the heat, which consequently allows the juices to evaporate too much. Still others feel that the racks are just a nuisance, because too much of the meat ends up sticking to them making for more difficult clean-up.

Even though the roasting pans themselves may be stainless steel, the racks that can come with them are often just chrome-plated steel, which can wear off over time and rust, and may not be dishwasher safe. It can be very, very hard to find a replacement the right size.

Some people just use a rack on top of a heavy-gauge baking sheet with edges all round.

Some stainless steel roasting pans have bottoms that contain an aluminum core to help heat distribution. Some people think this is an important feature; some don’t (given that the heat is coming from the air in the oven, not from the bottom of the pan, except if you’re making gravy in them at the very end.) If you think this is important, double-check, as there has been some confusing advertising around which pans have this aluminum core.

Generally, an aluminum or copper core bottom is only useful if you intend to put the pan on a stove burner afterward and make gravy in it. Some roasting pans with less sturdy bottoms may warp if used on a stove top. Making the gravy right in the roasting pan can result in a darker, richer gravy (mind you, so can reaching for Bisto.) If you want to make good gravy on top the stove in the roasting pan, then you don’t want a non-stick roasting pan. Scraping the surface would ruin it, plus there’d be nothing to scrape anyway: the non-stick prevents the flavour bits from forming. A good roasting pan for gravy shouldn’t have grooves in it, the way the blue-speckled enamel ones do. The grooves make it harder work to get at all the brown flavour bits, and provide hiding places when making gravy for your thickener to cake up in.

In England, the Sunday roast dinner is still a very common occurrence, so roasting pans get very frequent use. In North America, they live most of the year in a basement, attic or at the back of a cupboard until an occasion arises for a roasted piece of meat. Roasting pan uses, however, aren’t restricted just to roasting meat. They can be used to make a water-bath, pot-luck sizes of lasagne, shepherd’s pie, cobbler, or scalloped potatoes. Small ones can be used to bake sausages in, make toad in the hole, etc. They can also be used for roasting vegetables.

Roasting Pan Sizes

Roasting Panscome in many sizes. When purchasing one, one of the first things you should do is measure your oven.

If you’re not sure visually how big a pan will handle how big a turkey, for instance, go to the grocery store, pick up a disposable tin foil roasting pan in one aisle, carry it over to where the turkeys are in the chiller section, and have a look to see what size turkey fits in what size of pan — then you can use your visual impressions to go to a kitchenware store and buy a roasting pan. Caution: don’t attempt this on the day before Thanksgiving or Christmas or you may get injured by impatient shoppers around you, and even if you survive that, you may find there are no roasting pans to be had anywhere for love or money.

For a low pan, look for something with a 2 to 3 inch (5 to 7 1/2 cm) side.

Some say that if you’re in doubt about what size to buy, to remember that a large roasting pan can be used for something small; while a small one can’t be used for something large. But, if you use a Roasting Pan that is too large for what you are cooking, leaving too much exposed surface around the meat, it will allow juices to evaporate away more quickly, and burn, and you can kiss your gravy good-bye. It can reduce heat circulation, leading to longer roasting times required.

On the other hand, if the Roasting Pan is too small and the bird is squished into it, the sides won’t brown, just steam, and end up white and squidgy. The advantage to smaller ones is that they can take up less shelf space in the oven, allowing room for something else — often a major consideration at the high holidays when shelf space is at a premium. They are also easier to fit into crowded dishwashers afterward, and easier to store.

Oval Roasting Pans

A North American classic roasting pan is oval, blue-speckled enamel with grooved indents in the bottom, and with a matching lid. They are actually dark blue, so dark it’s almost black.

Most North Americans think that all roasting pans are either disposable foil or oval — such is the extent that the blue-speckled enamelled ones have come to dominate the market there over the decades. They have high-domed lids so they can be used for braising and pot roasts, and have higher sides to prevent splattering. Some say, though, that the high sides inhibit the hot air getting to the lower parts of what you are roasting, with the result that you never get proper browning the way you do in a low-edged roasting pan.

They are quite light considering their size.

Oval ones are harder than flat square or enamel ones to use for other things such as pot-luck size lasagna, etc.

The lids should not be used if you are actually “roasting”; only if you are making a pot roast or braising something. While a lid will speed the cooking of a regular roast, the roast will end up being steamed, as opposed to roasted.

Foil Roasting Pans

Foil pans are inexpensive, and are meant to be disposable, meaning no clean-up. Because you buy them as you need them, and then toss them, they require no storage space.

Some makes may leak.

They are not as sturdy as a “real” roasting pan. Foil pans can buckle from the weight of a large turkey when you lift them — lift them out of the oven with caution to avoid hot grease falling on you. For this reason, most warn to lift and hold them by the bottom, not the sides.

You may wish to put a heavy-duty baking sheet underneath them, and lift the sheet instead. Some people like to buy two disposable ones, and double-them up, which also solves any leakage problem. If you put a baking sheet underneath, be aware that some people say the baking sheet underneath impedes heat flow and slows down the cooking times.

Foil roasting pans can be useful if you want to use a roasting pan in your outdoor smoker or grill; the sides of whatever roasting pan you use can get quite dirty from the smoke and flames.

You can’t put foil Roasting Pans on top the stove to make gravy in.

Often the advertising or maker’s packaging is stuck to the bottom inside the pan with some glue. It can be hard to get all the glue out, which people want to before they put their food in.

Foil pans are recyclable in some areas. Others counter that recycling is still not as good as re-using, which a “real” roasting pan lets you do.

On a related note, some people try to get the benefits of easy foil clean up combined with a regular roasting pan by lining their roasting pans with tin foil. If you do so, you can kiss good-bye to any deglazing to make proper gravy.

Substitutes

A cast-iron frying pan with a cast-iron handle can be used as a roasting pan. CorningWare casserole dishes can be used for small chickens or pieces of beef.